Daily Words of God: Knowing God | Excerpt 20

In fact, God’s disposition is open to everyone and is not hidden, because God has never consciously avoided any person and has never consciously sought to conceal Himself so that people will not be able to know Him or understand Him. God’s disposition has always been open and has always been facing each person in a frank manner. During God’s management, God does His work, facing everyone; and His work is done on every single person. As He does this work, He is continuously revealing His disposition, continuously using His essence and what He has and is to guide and provide for each single person. In every age and on every stage, regardless of whether the circumstances are good or bad, God’s disposition is always open to each individual, and His possessions and being are always open to each individual, in the same way that His life is constantly and unceasingly providing for mankind and supporting mankind. Despite all of this, God’s disposition remains hidden to some. Why is that so? It is because even though these people live within God’s work and follow God, they have never sought to understand God or wanted to get to know God, let alone get closer to God. For these people, understanding God’s disposition means their end is coming; it means they are about to be judged and convicted by God’s disposition. Therefore, these people have never desired to understand God or His disposition, and don’t covet a deeper understanding or knowledge of God’s will. They don’t intend to comprehend God’s will through conscious cooperation—they just forever enjoy and never tire of doing the things they want to do; believe in the God they want to believe in; believe in the God that exists only in their imaginations, the God that exists only in their conceptions; and believe in a God that cannot be separated from them in their daily lives. When it comes to the true God Himself, they are completely dismissive, with no desire to understand Him, to pay heed to Him, and have even less intention of growing closer to Him. They are only using the words God expresses to gloss over themselves, to package themselves. For them, that already makes them successful believers and people with faith in God inside their hearts. In their hearts, they are guided by their imaginations, their conceptions, and even their personal definitions of God. The true God Himself, on the other hand, has absolutely nothing to do with them. Because once they understand the true God Himself, understand God’s true disposition, and understand what God has and is, this means that their actions, their faith, and their pursuits will be condemned. That is why they are not willing to understand God’s essence, and why they are reluctant and unwilling to actively seek or pray to better understand God, better know God’s will, and better understand God’s disposition. They would rather God be something made up, hollow and elusive. They would rather God be someone who is exactly as they have imagined Him, someone who can be at their beck and call, inexhaustible in supply and always available. When they want to enjoy God’s grace, they ask God to be that grace. When they need God’s blessing, they ask God to be that blessing. When they are faced with adversity, they ask God to embolden them, to be their safety net. These people’s knowledge of God is stuck within the ambit of grace and blessing. Their understanding of God’s work, God’s disposition, and God is also restricted to their imaginations and merely letters and doctrines. But there are some people who are eager to understand God’s disposition, want to genuinely see God Himself, and truly understand God’s disposition and what He has and is. These people are in pursuit of the reality of truth and God’s salvation, and seek to receive God’s conquest, salvation, and perfection. These people use their hearts to read God’s word, use their hearts to appreciate every situation and every person, happening, or thing God has arranged for them, and pray and seek with sincerity. What they want most is to know God’s will and to understand God’s true disposition and essence. This is so they will no longer offend God, and through their experiences, will be able to see more of God’s loveliness and see His true side. It is also so that a genuinely real God will exist inside their hearts, and so that God will have a place in their hearts, such that they will no longer be living among imaginations, conceptions, or elusiveness. For these people, the reason they have a pressing desire to understand God’s disposition and His essence is because God’s disposition and essence are things mankind could need at any moment in their experiences, things that supply life throughout their lifetimes. Once they understand God’s disposition, they will be able to better revere God, better cooperate with God’s work, and be more considerate toward God’s will and do their duty to the best of their abilities. These are the two types of people when it comes to their attitudes toward God’s disposition. The first don’t want to understand God’s disposition. Even though they say they want to understand God’s disposition, get to know God Himself, see what God has and is, and genuinely appreciate God’s will, deep down inside they would rather that God does not exist. It is because this type of people consistently disobey and resist God; they fight God for position in their own hearts and often suspect or even deny God’s existence. They don’t want to let God’s disposition or let the real God Himself occupy their hearts. They only want to satisfy their own desires, imaginations, and ambitions. So, these people may believe in God, follow God, and can also give up their families and jobs for Him, but they don’t put an end to their evil ways. Some even steal or squander offerings, or curse God in private, while others might use their positions to repeatedly testify about themselves, aggrandize themselves, and compete with God for people and status. They use various methods and measures to make people worship them, constantly trying to win people over and control them. Some even intentionally mislead people into thinking that they are God so they can be treated like God. They would never tell people they have been corrupted, that they are also corrupt and arrogant, and not to worship them, and that no matter how well they do, it is all due to God’s exaltation and what they ought to be doing anyway. Why don’t they say these things? Because they are deeply afraid of losing their place in people’s hearts. This is why such people never exalt God and never bear witness to God, as they have never tried to understand God. Can they know God without understanding Him? Impossible! Thus, while the words in the topic “God’s Work, God’s Disposition, and God Himself” may be simple, their meaning is different to everyone. For someone who often disobeys God, resists God, and is hostile toward God, it means condemnation; whereas for someone who seeks the reality of the truth and often comes before God to seek God’s will, it is undoubtedly like a fish to water. So among you, when some hear talk of God’s disposition and God’s work, they will start to get a headache, their hearts will grow full of resistance, and they will become extremely uncomfortable. But there will be others among you who will think: This topic is exactly what I need, because this topic is so beneficial to me. It’s a part that cannot be missing in my life experience; it is the crux of the crux, the foundation of faith in God, and something mankind cannot afford to abandon. For all of you, this topic might seem both near and far, unknown yet familiar. But no matter what, this is a topic that everyone sitting here must listen to, must know, and must understand. No matter how you deal with it, no matter how you look upon it or how you receive it, the importance of this topic cannot be ignored.

Excerpted from The Word Appears in the Flesh